Val Kilmer Remembered by "Tombstone" Co-star Michael Biehn

"Johnny Ringo" talks with us about his "Huckleberry"

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott VORDIEZ, this is one of the great scenes in
movie history.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Well, I didn't think you had it in you. I'm
your hunkomber. Why Johnny Ringo? It looked like somebody had

(00:27):
just walked over your grave.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
That scene from Tombstone nineteen ninety three featured Val Kilmer,
who we just learned yesterday passed away at the age
of sixty five, and Nebraska native Michael Bean playing Johnny
Ringo in that movie, who joins us once again on
the program. Michael, good morning. It's great to have you
back on the show. Of course, I wish it was

(00:50):
under better circumstances.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Good morning, Good morning, Scott. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, I know that. You know, people work together and
they go their separate way. Is so, I don't know
how much you and Val Kilmer kept in touch over
the years. But when you're so entwined in what ends
up being a pivotal scene in a beloved movie, people
they think of Val Kilmer and they immediately think of

(01:18):
Johnny Ringo, they think of Michael Bean. So when you
think about that movie, that scene, and that actor Val Kilmer,
what thoughts come to your mind?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Well, you know, the movie it took a while for
people to really appreciate when it came out. He didn't
make a lot of money, he didn't get that good
of reviews. Val was nominated, there were no nominations, but
thirty years later that movie has, like a fine wine,
has gotten better and better and Valance one thing I

(01:51):
can say about him is he's a truly gifted actor
and he made me better. I would say I was
at a table reading with him for the uh well
before before we started shooting, and I remembered that that
I didn't know, you know, how to speak the Latin,
and I didn't even know what I was saying during

(02:12):
the table reading, and he he knew the Latin, and
he knew he knew exactly what he was saying. And
that was kind of a kick to my behind, Like, Okay,
I better get my dukes up, because you know this
guy's coming hard. He was a really, really fine actor.
The truth of the matter is is I didn't really
spend very much time with vow. I have no idea

(02:34):
who Val Kilmer is. I know who Doc Holliday is,
and uh, we kind of kept away from each other
unless unless we needed to uh uh be working. Uh
with each other. I used to hang out with the cowboys.
I used to hang out with Powells Booth and Stephen
Lang and John Corbett and Val used to hang out

(02:56):
with Kurt and when we were on the set, he
was but we didn't, you know, we didn't exchange any pleasantries.
And uh, that scene that you just showed, basically Val
and I had to go out and rehearse that ourselves.

(03:16):
It was a mess up. Production director was fired from it.
But it is, you know, I'm very proud of it now.
And uh, it's a you know Valors, you know, he's
been set for quite a while and I wasn't surprised,

(03:38):
but like you said, I really got a close connection
with him when it comes to not only working with him.
I'd worked with him on another show too, with fifty cent,
but this was this is special because you know, the
movie's so special. And I I I I've got a

(04:00):
podcast that I named just fooling about because if that,
if your scene had run a little longer, he says, oh,
Johnny Ringo, and I said, my fight's not with you. Yeah,
And he says, I beg to differ, and I say, oh,
I'm just fooling about and that is the name of
my podcast. And that's kind of like how I revere

(04:24):
the movie itself and working with Vow and curting everybody
else too, Bill Paxton, Sam Elliott, mean, the whole crew.
It was an incredible cast and it's I'm very proud
to be in it and very proud to have worked
on it.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
An amazing cast, even if some of the critics didn't
realize in nineteen ninety three how legendary this cast was.
And you look at what you just described there, that
Val Kilmer method actor at best. One director called him
psychotic for how he would throw himself into some of

(04:56):
these roles. There was turmoil on the set, the director
was fired. But you've been in so many different movies
that how often is it that you end up working
with directors who are interesting or maybe get fired during
the production and actors who are maybe a little interesting
to work with. Is that pretty normal?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
No, you know, you know, these days, I don't think
that that that you see it quite as much. It's
kind of natural when you're doing a movie for like
I said, for Johnny Ringo too and Michael Bean to
hang out with Powers Booth, you know, and Powers Booth

(05:37):
played Curly Bill, and he was, you know, the head
of our group. And I drove down to Tucson in
my car with him, and you know, we just didn't.
I didn't have anything to say about People always ask me, oh,
and I get you know, that movie is probably more
I get asked more about that movie. People want to

(05:59):
know more stories about that movie. Uh. Sometimes I do
autograph shows, and uh, people want that movie autograph more something,
even as much or more than the Cameron movies that
I did, the Terminator and Aliens and the Abyss, you know,
which were big movies of that time too, but that

(06:20):
this movie has just grown with with time. And and
thou Thou was uh yeah. I don't know if he
necessarily would call him a method actor, but he was
he you know, he was never rude. He was never uh.
I mean we were never waiting for him, we were

(06:40):
never uh he was you know, he kind of walked around,
he was kind of stay in character. Uh and but
you know that's that's the way that it kind of
was on that set. And he uh he used to
use some stuff on his uh faith that they used

(07:00):
to put on, like for sweat, make you look sweaty.
I can't think of the name of it. Second, as
soon as I get off and already have the name
of it. But you put it on your face, and
he put that on and I could never use it.
I would always have people spray water on me, and
he put it on his face. It's very, very irritating.
And he kind of used that as like always being

(07:23):
in pain, always being you know, because he had tuberculosis.
The character had tuberculosis, and I remember him kind of
walking around to set bitching and moaning about like this,
you know, the pain that he was in because he's
wearing wearing this stuff on his face and his neck,

(07:43):
and so I I, you know, I respected him a
lot of an actor. But when you're on a set
with Kurt Russell and Sam Elliott and Stephen Laying and
myself in Power's booth, you know, you you can only
you can only spread around so much, you know before

(08:04):
somebody's gonna let you know that, you know you're walking
over the line.

Speaker 1 (08:08):
Well, that's the thing, you know, he's he his character there,
as you mentioned, had tuberculosa. He looked so sickly. I mean,
the eye is the the pale, the sweat I mean,
it was clear that he had really thrown himself into
being that character. Another moment here with Johnny Ringo from Tombstone,
Michael Bean with us Year talking about the passing of

(08:30):
Val Kilmer, who was also in that movie Doc Holliday
in that iconic scene, the I'm of your Huckleberry line.
When you talk with the other actors in there, would
they be like, you know, VAL's a kind of an
interesting cat, isn't he? Or was it just like that's
that's just how how you.

Speaker 2 (08:46):
Know we wait, everybody knew, you know, halfway into shooting
that he was giving a great performance. Everybody knew it.
And the Cowboys and that being me and Powers Moose
and even Lang and John Corbett and uh you know
we you know, we we used to the new director

(09:08):
on the movie. The first one was Kevin Jarr and
Kevin got fired four a week seeing they brought in
a guy named George Cosmondos and he just was falling
all over the bow like you know, like like he
was Marilyn Monroe. And you know, we we used to
call it uh uh validas you know, the way that

(09:30):
they treated him on the set, it was like, you know,
it was like us as the cowboys. You got to
remember we weren't friends. We weren't you know, we were
we were enemies right from the beginning of the movie.
So therefore, when you're kind of hanging around the set,
you look at the way things are going. And we
resented the fact that everybody was fawning all over him

(09:52):
because he was, you know, giving a good performance, and
that we powers that. I used to call it validas,
but you know, that's that's the way that you know,
that's the way that it was. Everybody, like everybody knew
that he was. And he's always been a very very
talented actor, just a great, wonderful actor. And I'm you know,

(10:18):
it depends on the circumstances that you're in when you're
going to act out. I know that Schumacher had a
lot of trouble with him. Joel Schumacher has spoke, ye
spoken very kindly to him about him. But it depends
on the you know, it depends on where Val is
in his career, it depends on who the director is,

(10:39):
depends on how much he respects the material. But he
was he he was a fair and worthy opponent when
we did Tombstone, and he didn't act out in any way.
He was a dedicated actor on that movie. He was
always ready to shoot when they were ready to shoot.

(11:02):
And like you know, like I said, I named my
podcast after our line that we had, and I respected
him as an actor. I didn't know him as a person.
I never knew him as a person. Well, he asked me,
what go ahead?

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Yeah, well we would you know, learn later that he
would carry a camcorder around and film all this stuff
as all all the movie sets. I don't know if
I can watch that documentary for a while yet. I
think it'd be too sad. But was he doing that
on Tombstone?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
I didn't, you know, No, I don't you know these days,
you know, with the internet. The only thing that I
can ever find on Tombstone is I think they brought
in a crew at one point and spoked all the actors,
and they spoke to Vow, they spoke to Kurt, they
spoke to me, they spoke the powers and we're all interviewed.

(11:52):
But they didn't they didn't, you know, No, you know,
they didn't they. I don't remember him ever filming anything,
so I don't think that he did it on Tombstone,
and I don't think that, you know, we I didn't
have a I didn't have the kind of relationship with

(12:14):
him where you know, if he stuck a camera in
my face, he he was gonna he was he would
have understood very quickly that I didn't need him, you know,
putting a camera in my face. And I think that
because of the people he was working with, like Sam
Elliott and like Kurt Russell. You know, these are big
time players, big time actors who have done a lot,

(12:36):
and Paxton had worked a lot, and you know, so
you just don't act out around these kind of guys
because they'll let you know that you know, you know,
you know it's not appropriate. And so, like I said,
this was a set that he was very restrained. I'm

(12:56):
very glacerin glycerin. That is what you put on your
face to make it look like you have sweat glycerin.
And he'd put that on and then he would walk
around bitching and moaning about the fact that how uncomfortable
it made him. And I understand, it made me so uncomfortable.
I can't have it on for any more than about

(13:18):
a minute. But he used that and I really respect
the fact that he used that as kind of a
like like the tuberculos is just one more thing that
he had to deal with. And you're right, Thal always
had a tendency to kind of be overweight, and what
he did on that movie as far as losing weight,
as far as his look, as far as as you know,

(13:41):
I think it's this best performance and I have nothing
but respect for him as an actor. I just never
really got to know him personally.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
No doors fans might disagree with his best performance maybe
as Jim Morrison, but between Doc Holliday and Jim Morrison.
Val Kilmer gave it a lot of entertainment. Michael, as
of you, and you've given us a lot of time
this morning. I really appreciate you checking in here and
talking about the passing of your cast mate from Tombstone.
Val Kilmer, of course we talk about and we talked

(14:12):
to in the past. Michael Bean here, I call you
Nebraska native. That's not exactly accurate. We'll call it adopted son.
Nebraska adopted son.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
No, I lived in Nebraska. I know you're gonna wrap
it up, but I lived in Nebraska from the time
I was two until I was fourteen. So I consider
myself a Lincoln Night Night. That's where I grew up,
That's where my past is, That's where my history comes from.

Speaker 1 (14:35):
Works for me, of course, Michael Bean from some of
these great James Cameron movies, The Terminator, Aliens, the Abyss.
If we're gonna go over your credits, let's not forget Tombstone,
or more recently, we've seen you in The Mandalorian, which
was a lot of fun, The Walking Dead. What are
you working on now?

Speaker 2 (14:52):
I just finished a movie with a great, great director
named Adam Winguard. And Adam did the two King Kong
Versus Godzilla's and he's got a new movie coming out
called Onslaught, which I really it's reminds me a lot
of the It's the first script that I've read that
I thought like, wow, this is a late Terminator. It's

(15:15):
got some you know, bad guys that just keep coming
and it's uh, it's just lots of action, lots of uh,
you know, fighting and uh it's but it's a good,
good script. Adam wing Guard, you can you can go
back and look at him and his his stuff. And
I just finished that in January, and uh, you know,

(15:38):
I just have a really really good feeling about him,
like I said, like I said, I have a podcast
and I had to add him on the podcast, and
we talk about the making of Onslaught. But I think
Onslaught you can google that now and and and I
think it's really that I haven't felt this good about
a movie since I did Grindhouse. You know. It's Robert

(16:00):
Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
Yeah, that was a great one. That's another great Kurt
Russell performance in that one. Yeah, and I'm looking here
at Onslaught. Another favorite guest on this show, Reginald vel Johnson,
is in that program. We love reg So Michael, you too,
Thank you so much for all the time this morning continued.
Best of luck. We'll look forward to seeing Onslaught and

(16:22):
upcoming action horror thriller film in theaters this year. Michael Bean,
thank you very much for the time. Okay, Scott Voyes
Mornings nine to eleven, Our News Radio eleven ten KFAB